Olivia and the BIG 12! November 20, 2012

Back in November Olivia turned 12.  We love her so much and her sweet personality.  She is so loving and giving.  When things don't go her way she is so quick to just shrug it off and act like it's no big deal.  Being the second child AND having the it's no big deal kind of attitude it's easy to set her feelings aside to care for those that express their wants and desires a little more.  We decide we wanted to make this birthday special and planned a surprise party.  We invited the girls from her class at church.  She was so surprised.

This girl is NOT a chocolate cake lover but wanted Strawberry Shortcake - so yes, Strawberry Shortcake in November it is!

 

The party girls:

Kaitlyn, Aubrey, Natalie, Mikayla, Courtney and Olivia

 

I love killing 2 birds with one stone (just metaphorically, I really don't think I could really do that, I mean, really how is that even possible?) 

I found a great little game to play at the party while getting rid of all the rest of the halloween candy.  We took the candy and rolled it up into packaging tape.  Every few inches we'd stick a piece on the tape and then roll it up until it was a giant ball.  Then the girls sat in a circle and took turns rolling the dice.  Once someone rolled doubles, they grabbed the ball of candy and tried to get the candy out of the tape.  They had as much time as it took for the next person to roll doubles and then that person grabbed the ball and tried to get the candy.  A super fun yet noisy game.

 

After the party, the daddy got home and made the birthday dinner.  What did this girl pick?  Stuffed pork chops of course.  Yummy!

 

 Every night before Liv's birthday, some of the girls and leaders from the Young Women's program at church brought her a gift.  Each value in the program has a color coordinated with it.  Every night her gifts would match the color of the value for that night.  She looked forward to that doorbell every night.

For her birthday, Liv wanted her room redone.  She was through with the butterflies and seriously, what 12 year old girl wants one ugly brown wall.  Here are some before pictures and one after shot.

BEFORE:

 

 

AFTER

She LOVES her new room.  And we LOVE this girl dearly!

I couldn't imagine life without her.

 



Life With My Cute Family

Sometimes I just want to find the BEST pictures and the funnest activities to post on my blog.  But the other day I realized that this is for my posterity to enjoy and so I thought I better just put the real life stuff that happens around our house.  No filters, just us. 

Who knows why this picture was taken.  From the looks of it, someone didn't want to do the dishes and was stalling by playing with the camera.

 McKenna and Alexa decided to do each others hair one day.  Here are their creations.

 I was impressed that McKenna knew how to use a ponytail holder.

 Alexa's attempt.

 After church every Sunday the girls have to wait for me to collect my things and converse with the other ladies in primary.  To pass the time on this day, they grabbed my camera. 

McKenna, always loving the camera.

 The first Spirit week for Alexa at the High School was Monsoon Monday.  So she went prepared for the occasion.  Our favorite was a boy from church who dressed up as Noah.

 One day on of our favorite cousins, Brenden came to visit and stay the night.  We felt very privileged and the girls LOVED having him come swim with them.  Look at those faces!  We just hope he'll come again sometime.

 I gave Maya the chore of cleaning the track on the sliding door one day.  She got so into it and did such a good job I had to document it.

 This one has a little explaining to do:  When my sister, Maren was in high school she could play the piano with her legs behind her head.  Yes, you read that right, behind her head.  She submitted a video of her doing that to the David Letterman Show to be on his Stupid Human Tricks.  They brought her to New York twice in hopes of her being on but she didn't get picked, but heck, she got paid, and a free trip to New York, doesn't get better than that.  Well, we talk about that experience every now and then around our house.  Enough that McKenna felt the need to try it out.  Here's her flexible self putting her leg behind her head.  Now she just has to learn to play the piano.

Here is a desert rat.  Yep, swimming in our pool.  Enjoying it all to himself.  I looked outside one day and saw him swimming around.  He ended up in the trap and I left him there until Tim got home.  I sent him out to get it out.  It happened to still be alive.  Maya and McKenna followed him out to watch him get rid of it.  He got it out of the trap and the little guy started scurrying away in between his legs, he jumped up McKenna started backing up because it scared her and she ended up falling in the pool.  Alexa, Olivia, and I watched from inside and had a good laugh.  My only regret - I didn't get it on tape.  Just glad he's out.

 One day I heard the piano and looked in to see who was playing.  I saw this sweet image.  Maya was giving McKenna a little piano lesson.  What I loved was how kind and teacher like she was talking to McKenna.  They both sat there for the longest time working together.  Warmed my heart.

 This is a common occurrence when the dad's around!

 First time playing hide and go seek in this house.  There are no street lights in Tucson and so it gets nice and dark when you have the lights off.  I put McKenna up here on our "Lovely" fireplace and told her to sit there and be quiet.  I was worried she'd be scared but she sat so still, Alexa never found her.  When we turned the lights on I tried to get her down but she wanted to stay up there the rest of the night.  She thinks it's the best seat in the house.

 McKenna's attempt at being like her teenage sister.  Taking a picture of herself in the bathroom.  I guess she needs some tutoring on how to do it. 

 Alexa - need I say more?

 After Tim built my great shelves in the garage we had some scrap wood. 

Olivia and Maya decided to make this horse with it.  Tim helped them with a few screws but they came up with it all on their own. 

 Shopping at Kohl's.  McKenna LOVED these shoes.  Can you say, "Sassy"?

 

This girl turned 15 on October 24, 2012! WHAT?!

It's hard to believe that my little Alexa who used to look like this:

has turned into this:  A beautiful young woman with lots of spunk and personality.  She's so fun to have around. 

For her birthday she didn't want cake.  Thanks to pinterest we found this idea for a cookie bowl.  They of course were harder to make than they showed on pinterest but they were delicious.  We just had them at home and invited our friends, the Claridge's to enjoy dessert with us.  It was a fun time for all of us.

 

The birthday girl.

McKenna and the Dad

Alexa excited to see what was in her present.

Maya and Olivia

We are so blessed to have such a sweet daughter like Alexa.  She's a good example to her sisters and they love her dearly.  I can't believe how fast the time flies, soon this girl will be leaving the nest.  But I don't like to think about that too much.

First day of School August 2012

This school year was the hardest of them all.  I had a freshman that I had to get to seminary every morning so she couldn't ride the bus, the other three went to the Legacy Traditional Charter School and they have no buses.  And to top it off, McKenna was half day kindergarten so I had to go back and pick her up.  Luckily we were able to carpool.  Even with the carpooling, there were days that I was driving all three carpools.  I only had two mornings a month that I didn't have to drive the kids.  I cherished those mornings.  Even with all the driving, I wouldn't change it.  The girls LOVE their school and I love how patriotic they are and that they challenge the kids.  It is an accelerated program where they are teaching a year ahead.  So even though the Olivia is in 6th, she would be doing 7th grade math, except she goes to math with the seventh graders so she is actually doing 8th grade math.  And the same with Maya - she is in 4th grade but she goes with the 5th graders for math so she is doing 6th grade math.  They love it and enjoy what they are learning.  And I'm glad they are willing to fit them with a class that fits their abilities.  We've been in some schools that won't let the kids move up in a subject.

 

Alexa - Freshman at Marana High School

(Can she really be this old?)

 

 McKenna - Kindergarten

Teacher:  Mrs. De LaCerna

 Livie - 6th Grade

Teacher:  Mrs. Babico

 

 Maya - 4th Grade

Teacher:  Ms. Scheier/Mr. Ellis

Half way through the school year, they dissolved Ms. Scheier's class and Maya went to Mr. Ellis' class.  We were sad that she had to leave Ms. Scheier's class but she absolutely loved Mr. Ellis' class.

It turned out to be a good experience for her after all.

 I just don't think they get any cuter.

MOVING SUMMER 2012

At the end of July 2012 we were able to close on our house.  We were so grateful to be out of our little rental.  The property management was difficult to work with and the house was really run down.  So we found a house that fit our needs and had a great location.  No houses behind us and  a park and bike path behind our lot.  Which is perfect for the girls to be able to play and explore.  With houses built so close together here, I feel like they wouldn't get that opportunity otherwise. 

 

We decided not to move in right away and take advantage of the fact that we had one more month on our rental and we could do work around the house without furniture and trying to unpack.  I had BIG plans with painting and such.  But unfortunately the house had other plans.  We found problem after problem.  It was  a little discouraging.  The garage door spring broke the day after we moved in, the light in the family room didn't work, the downstairs bath sink leaked, the carpet upstairs wasn't tacked down, the mother board for the salt cell system for the pool quit working, we had a leak in the upstairs toilet, Livie's window wouldn't open or close and it was off center so bugs got in (the screen had been taken off).  The flanges on the toilets all needed to be replaced since they were dripping.  And to top it off Tim found a couple of scorpions.  This was within the first few weeks of owning the home.  So needless to say, my plans for prettying the place up were put on the back burner so we could repair and replace all the problems.  So much for the inspection.

 

A funny to us now story (it wasn't funny at the time.)  Tim wanted to replace the locks on the house and so we went to Lowe's bought the locks and he went to install them.  He took the screws out of the lock expecting it to come apart.  No such luck.  After 1/2 a day of trying to remove the lock, going back to Lowe's to buy tools to try and remove it,   and ruining the paint on the door, he was able to get it off.  The lock had some internal screws that we didn't know about and couldn't see from the outside which was the cause of the lock not coming apart.  We spent the entire day working and at about 9pm we decided to call it quits.  He had the door lock on and we were exhausted.  But, to our dismay, we couldn't find the keys ANYWHERE to lock up the house.  I couldn't believe it.  We searched and searched the entire house.  We drove back to Lowe's to see if maybe we dropped them and someone picked them up.  No such luck.  We finally had to call a lock smith that Monday to come out and key us some new keys.  Luckily he was super nice and charged me very little.

 The dreaded lock! 

 Here's my little helper painting the kitchen.

 I realize all of these are before pictures and I don't have any after.  I guess because I feel like I'm still in unpacking, decorating mode even a year later.  (It's been a crazy year.)

 Here is the reason I HAD to get painting this place.  Look at this awful fireplace and wall.  You can't tell from the picture but it was a rusty red color.  The tile around the fireplace doesn't match the floor tile.  We have big plans to get rid of this eyesore.

 This stairwell was painted mauve.  Yeah, another paint emergency.  After we moved in, I was talking to the realtor that was selling the house next door.  She said how much she loved our house and that she had shown it a few times.  She told me the biggest comment that she got about the house was how much people liked all the paint in the house.  I told her that I had just painted over all of it and she looked a little surprised.  Seriously, who wants a mauve stair well? 

 The view from the dining area.

 I don't know if you can tell very well in this picture but the mauve color on the stairs is on the right side of this wall and then they changed to another color for the room at the top of the stairs.  The did that diagonal paint line at the corner.  Awesome!  (yes, that's me being sarcastic.)

Oh, and I need to do a shout out here for my friends, Kimberlee Dana and Colette Seagle.  They came and helped me paint.  Colette came to the house even when I wasn't there to help me paint.  We were able to get the whole downstairs done except the laundry room and the bathroom, the stairwell and most of the upstairs hallway and loft area done before we moved in.  Oh, and the little girls bedroom, I painted the day we closed. 

 The shower in the master bath also leaked where the glass and this wall meet in the corner.  It was damaging the dry wall on the outside of the shower.  So I decided since it was yellowing and had stains on the caulking, I would just re - caulk the whole thing.  It looks SOOO much better and the leak is gone. 

I almost forgot that my parents came down and took the girls home to their house so that we could work on getting these shelves done in the garage and other things that we hadn't been able to get to.  It was such a relief to be able to just focus on getting these projects done and get ourselves a little more organized.

 I also wanted to do something with the laundry room.  Here is a picture of one wall before.

Here it is painted.  Tim also made me the stand for my washer and dryer.  Notice that I can put my baskets underneath instead of on tope of the machines.  I like it so much more. 

 This has been such a busy year, I'm glad that we've been able to get as much done as we have.  The problem I have is that I want it all done right now.  And now that I've posted all this, I realized that I need to do some after pictures and post them.  Some day!